Aussie musings

I got a mention ♦ About time you made a blog, gl on NL20. Moving up to NL50 with 20 stacks doesn't sound like a very good idea to me though

I had planned to start fiddling with it, but wont cut over completely at that point. For example, I might risk NL50 on fishday or saturday night euro times, when the tables are full of fat fish waiting to be speared, with a single stack stop loss that is actually a "go back to NL20 and redeem it" point.

Its about the same thing I did when I first flirted into NL20. Of course at the time for some reason I was convinced that Titan would have US players active and drunk; I didnt understand that its mostly a euro platform, so i was playing late morning / early afternoon local, which is early morning dead time euro time (3am-8am!). Whoops.

What do you think of that plan?

If you think its crazy ill take it under advisement and consider holding off to proper BRM. According to BRM $1000 is within the NL20/50 overlap zone (move up at 1500, move back down at 600). So thats why I feel somewhat comfortable flirting a stack here or there at about $1000, while still playing NL20 at offpeak (tougher) times.

Nice intro Mick, great to see you blogging.

I've personally found that trying to play at U.S. drunk time can also sometimes backfire. I tend now to just try to play my A-game whenever I feel mentally strong enough and not worry too much about what time it is.

Would be interested to see if it works for you though.

Anyway, great start, looking forward to reading regularly and good luck buddy!

Bart

I always thought u were a girl Anyways, good luck with ur goals n have fun!

End of night update -

slipped a little in cash tables as I kept at them until 5am when the $2k titan freeroll started, then kept 2 open while I played the freeroll to stop myself going insane folding.

Down to +143 for the night on cash tables.

Caught 30th in the freeroll for $15. Was in a spot to climb to around 10th in chips in this hand (when there was about 80 left) -

Blinds 200/400

Hero is BB with 87o
MP3 raises to 800
Hero calls

Flop 8 9 9
Hero raises 1200
MP3 shoves
Hero calls

MP3 shows JQo

Turn T

Bit sad.

A quiet day yesterday as the gross number of hands played this month finally caught up and took toll. "only" 740 hands played for a $10 profit.

Disaster this morning local. Woke up feeling great, "in the zone" one might say. A short run at NL50 with a stoploss of $50 ended at $85 down after a couple of bad overplays vs fish and two lost flips (no flips won during session):

Hero AK vs QQ - Loss (pot $14)
Hero 99 vs AK - Loss (pot $10)

Then this stinking hand put the nail in the coffin (busted past stoploss) -

Known players:
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/RaisePreflop/AF/WTS/ORL/BBvsSteal/W$SD;Hero$61.34:///////;CO$36.07:34/41 /21 /-/17 /0 /0 /50 ;BU$27.21:37/8 /8 /-/67 /33 /100 /100 ;[/tg]
0.25/0.5 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: PokerStrategy Elephant 0.67 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with A♠, A♦
4 folds, Hero raises to $2.00, CO calls $2.00, BU raises to $6.00, 2 folds, Hero calls $4.00, CO calls $4.00.

Flop: ($18.75) 8♠, 4♥, 3♥ (3 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $5.00, BU raises to $15.00, Hero raises to $55.34 (All-In), CO folds, BU raises to $21.21 (All-In).

Turn: ($100.30) 5♠
River: ($100.30) Q♦ (2 players)

Final Pot: $100.30

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows a pair of aces (As Ad)
BU shows three of a kind, queens (Qh Qc)

BU wins with three of a kind, queens (Qh Qc)

Add that pot going the correct way instead of down the tubes and id have been up for the day.

Naturally I immediately steamed, so that became the last hand I played till this evening (im getting good at leaving when I detect possible tilt!). Attempts at redeeming tonight are on and off, currently "up" $10 from the low point.

Such things happen. A notice that I have cleared the last $30 of the PS +100 bonus cheered me up. I now have no bonuses tying me to Titan poker. Thus the BR hasnt taken such a massive pounding as it might have. An ITM in a $5 freezeout (rather large tourney, placed something in the 50s in a pay 80) helped as well.

Fantastic email from PS today tells me the points have updated - Elephant licence! hello my sexy stats, how I have missed you! Expect win rates to increase now that I dont see "green" for a loosey and have to watch for reads instead.

Of course the update also kicked me across to Gold. Much reading to be done. Gives me good material to perhaps 2-table NL20 and absorb info.

I already read the slowplay article... and it doesnt cover the situation we argued over on the hand boards Fongy It covers not giving free cards (obviously) but not "just calling" vs re-raising a possible villain overbetting their draw. Since villain is overpaying for his draw by semi bluffing we can call-along and let him continue to make this mistake, as we will never fold trips to a semi-bluff. We know exactly where we stand, but the villain has not a clue

Anyway. Much more reading to do. I have been looking forward to villain profiles articles, pot control, blind defence and wa-wb especially.

Another quiet day. 550 hands, ran trips into flushes twice and a free-look BB full that ran into an aces full. I kid you not. Loose-passive-idiot (capable obviously of checking down the nuts, also capable of stacking with air..) completes the SB -

Known players:
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/RaisePreflop/AF/WTS/ORL/BBvsSteal/W$SD;SB$4.11:234/27 /10 /2.3/48 /27 /100 /44 ;Hero$20.23:///////;[/tg]
0.1/0.2 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: PokerStrategy Elephant 0.67 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9♦, 5♠
7 folds, SB calls $0.10, Hero checks.

Flop: ($0.40) 7♥, 5♥, A♠ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

Turn: ($0.40) 5♣ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.20, SB calls $0.20.

River: ($0.80) 9♥ (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $19.83 (All-In), SB raises to $3.71 (All-In).

Final Pot: $24.34

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows a full-house, fives full of nines (9d 5s)
SB shows a full-house, aces full of fives (Ac Ah)

SB wins with a full-house, aces full of fives (Ac Ah)

Very amusing hand.

So the day ends down $11.93. Kings cracked by an otherwise passive clown who raised Q3s in mp3 (despite 83 hand sample of 6 PFR) then called my 3-bet. Like I said, trips into flush. Maybe its "his favourite hand" or something. $32 pot down the tubes.

Time to go play home game manilla, then its off to the GF's parents place for the rest of the weekend. Bit sad at missing a go at fishday friday tomorrow morning local, but it happens. After 19,887 hands and +$362 for the month of April to date, I think a break will help. Last two days have both been redders so hopefully ill be back next week refreshed, gold articled-up (back to work tuesday = mucho reading time) and ready to crush NL20 once again.

BR - $702.40 I hate giving money back.

The horrors.

The doomswitch.

It hath been thrown on me and the BR is suffering. Another $46 down the tubes in a 3600 hand! session.

Hands incoming -

2011 edit These hands have been edited out, because no one wants to read that crap anyway. They wern't interesting

I guess I should be very, very happy that after that above set of hands I am only down $40 for a days play. If things had held up id be up hundreds.

[Edit - rough total for the hands where I think I was in front and got cracked, not counting just rough beats like running into multiple sets and the flopped str (which are standard), plus the split AK vs AK - about $620 in difference here. If even half those hands had held up this post would be full of happy and flowers and dancing and love

Short 1 hour, 200 hand session while the fiance is out,

redeem all yesterdays $46 down plus another $31 for good measure.

Isnt it great when hands just hold up? (along the lines of, "things just work")

Off-poker post.

"Jaissica" - Why my handle on PS is somewhat girly.

1998 - in my first foray into online gaming on westwood online, Red Alert, the game interface demanded a handle name of exactly 9 characters. Everythign I tried was taken and I ended up with the name "Mick87948" or something like that.

About the same time I was working my way through a (pathetic) star wars expanded universe novel, set immediately after the Return of the Jedi movie. In that book an alternate name for Jedi used was "Jai". Jaimaster was not taken on Westwood and so became my "cool internet gamer dude" name.

Fast forward to ~2003 and the MMORPG Eve Online, and a second account to complement my main (Jaimaster, of course). I decided to make a female avatar character for something different; dont ask why, but its pretty common in gamers in such games (take WoW for example, the population of female characters is exponentially higher than the population of actual female players). My favourite girls name is Jessica, thus "Jaissica" was created.

When I first came to register on PS.com, unfortunately my standard cool gamer dude handle Jaimaster was already in use (very suprising as it normally holds up as unique). So I used my first alternate, and this is why I have a feminine handle on this site.

In fact until I sold my eve-online Jaimaster, nearly every google reference to the term was to something I had done. Unfortunately the buyer or subsequent rebuyer of the eve-online account gets killed alot in game, while a young kid I played WoW with transferred and renamed his hunter after mine (flattering but irritating as he applied to about a million guilds using the name of course). So a google on Jaimaster now brings up hundred of eve-online kill lists and noobish hunter guild applications

Suprisingly Jaissica is even more commonly used. Appears it is actually used as a girls name in some obscure part of the world.

It is amusing to me that my power gamer handle has become as much a part of me as my RL name. I guess nearly 10 years of answering to a name, at some times up to 60! hours a week...

(hi, I am a recovering warcrack addict... Illidan main tank, quit before sunwell, full T6 and associated toys, Kael's sword, Mace from BT, rank below gladiator PVP, S3 mace... engineering chopper, bear mount from timed run of whatever it was... we were selling bears in the end... saw deep into AQ40 and some of Naxx as a hunter pre-xpac, but was shift-work and had to play casual in a casual guild)

Nice story now Red Alert, that brings back memories, I used to love that game! My favourite part was where you created your own level, I'd always fill my territory with tons of jewels n leave the enemy with a few measly pieces of gold hehe. I tried playin WoW on my boyf's account once but this horrible creature/mantype thing kept on killing me, n was always waiting for me in the same spot so he could kill me as soon as I had revived myself so I gave up lol.

I played a lot of wow too, but on a crappy server with crappy people/kids with no human skills. So it was a bad experience imo and so it wasnt too hard to quit.

btw, I thought u were a girl too <_<

Hehe. Understandable, given the name lends itself to that.

Poker post.

Ive a reflection on reverse tilt to share today. See, about the time I started this blog I was on a major upswing. I had a couple of massive days, including a monster +$190 BR day and another day where a -$112 hole was turned into a +$40 profit.

Now, when you are on negative tilt the obvious signs are easy to spot and resist. You feel yourself angry and playing hands you aught not, betting when you aught not, calling when you are behind. So you can quit and come back later.

When you are winning on a massive streak the same can happen, in a perverse sort of way. You can start calling when you shouldnt, because you are so far up that it "doesnt matter" if you lose. You can start playing hands you shouldnt because you feel unbeatable, invulnerable. Worse, a $30 days profit suddenly is not acceptable! A taste of a big BR upswing day leaves you hungry for more and more, hungry to rocket your BR into orbit and climb limits at exponential rates. So having won $30 for a 600 hand session (at a great 25BB/100 winrate!) you are not satisfied and make a stupid call or bet looking to "double up" and take another stack, and another stack, and another stack...

I hit that reverse tilt over the last 3-4 days. On reflection my play over my "breakeven" 10,000 hands or so has not been especially great, the downswing day with $620 total in suckouts excluded. My winrate has collapsed as I am gifting back my winnings when behind with rediculous auto calls, such as calling a $23 shove with TPGK. What hands do I expect to beat? How about calling a $17 shove from a complete nit with top and bottom 2p. How could I think I was in front vs such a player's shove? (both hands of course lost to sets).

In that I think I am lucky that my BR is "only" $70 short of its all time maximum. Bonuses have helped (the +100 rakeback from my PS seed money is now completed). In fact if you count Titan point redemption (holding ~12,000 points for $90 in value at the moment) my BR would be at an effective maximum, at $694 actual and +$90 unredeemed.

I have taken up limit shots and hit and missed. My winrate and game play on NL20 has collapsed due to undervalueing the chips due to the shots at NL50 / NL100 chasing fish. What I win on shots at 50/100 I lose back in silly overconfident plays on NL20. Greedy play, perhaps?

In any case, back at work today means several things -

* reading those gold articles, at last
* back to amature hand evaluation, which ive found is excellent for improving my own gameplay
* an enforced break from the stupid volume I have been playing lately

I managed 242 PS points in a single day and followed it up with 136 the day after. That says something about the volume and limit shots I have been taking; I think a break is required, not just desired.

Goals for the rest of april -

* post 3 zero PS point days in a row over the next 3 days
* adjust sleeping pattern so that I can get up at 5am local, play 3 hours poker, then go to work, starting next week
* stop taking "shots" at friend listed fish on NL50/100
* knuckle down and recognise that a 300 hand session on NL20 winning $10 is a great session (15bb/100) and not a waste of my time
* put in a pair of strong sessions on the weekend, NL20 only, and rediscover the play that put me on my upswing rather than the current "shot taking" gambling play that has generated a 10,000 hand break even stretch.

I will post my Elephant graph from home after work. The wise will spot the point where I start taking fish-hunting shots in waters that I should not be playing in, from the sudden massive spikey variations in the graph.

Just as I post about not taking plunges, I set myself up to take one -

Deposited $340 US to grab the maximum (for silver) reload bonus offered ($100). So my BR is "up" past $1000, but in a fake way.

Must-remember-deposited-not-won-money!

12,000 Titan points to gather. Must play TAG NL20 until the bonus is cleared - personal rule. This will leave me playing NL20 for something in the range of 30-35 thousand hands. This should be good for my game.

Okay, fail 3 PS-free (and thus poker free) days in a row. That bonus sucked me in.

Fairly solid 700 hand session for a $10.08 profit (and 234.6 points towards the 12,000 bonus - 8.33 recurring cents per point, plus an additional $90 for 12,000 points in the store giving a total value of 1.5833 recurring cents per point... makes bonus for the session $3.7145, a handy increase).

One absolutely stupid move vs an idiot fish. Repeat after me, I will not shove KK on A-high flop when passive idiot bets into me after calling huge 3bet. Of course he limp-called A9o. What a stupid move - not by the fish, by me - I donated $13.15 more than I had to. Even my flop Cbet was too big, meaning really I lost $15.15 more than I should have in this hand -

Known players:
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/RaisePreflop/AF/WTS/ORL/BBvsSteal/W$SD;Hero$23.15:///////;UTG2$0.94:10/70 /10 /-/14 /0 /-/0 ;MP1$20.28:165/59 /37 /1.8/39 /60 /40 /53 ;[/tg]
0.1/0.2 No-Limit Hold'em (8 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: PokerStrategy Elephant 0.67 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is SB with K♣, K♥
UTG2 raises to $0.94 (All-In), MP1 calls $0.94, 4 folds, Hero raises to $3.00, BB folds, MP1 calls $2.06.

Flop: ($7.14) A♠, J♥, 5♠ (2 players)
Hero bets $7.00, MP1 calls $7.00.

Turn: ($21.14) 2♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $5.28, Hero raises to $13.15 (All-In), MP1 raises to $10.28 (All-In).

River: ($44.57) 8♥ (2 players)

Final Pot: $44.57

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows a pair of kings (Kc Kh)
UTG2 shows high card ace with king kicker (Ks Qh)
MP1 shows a pair of aces (Ad 9c)

MP1 wins with a pair of aces (Ad 9c)

Public humiliation is a good cure for making horrible mistakes. That rediculous move was the difference between a $25 and a $10 session; a 7BB/100 vs a 17.5BB/100 session. One stupid move is all it takes.

BR - $1044.95 (GG $340 deposit for reload bonus)
Titan points - 11,848.35 (close enough to $90 redeemed)
Pending bonus - $100

Not a bad place to be.

Great job man.

A little vent for tonight. Very failure 400 hand session that went from $10 up to $30 down after this rediculous hand.

Villain is a regular nit who has been played with often. I have never before seen him pull anything this mindblowingly stupid.

His 3-bet range is only 2%, meaning he often flats with QQ/AK. The only hand I could give him credit for flatting a huge 3bet with was QQ, perhaps a slowplayed AA. So when the flop came I thought I had no problems; when he raised me I thought it was christmas and my read had been 100% right. Then he showed this -

Known players:
[tg]Position_Stack:hands/vp$ip/RaisePreflop/AF/WTS/ORL/BBvsSteal/W$SD;UTG1$1.21:107/23 /16 /14.0/33 /33 /100 /17 ;UTG2$27.02:2,801/9 /4 /3.5/32 /9 /93 /48 ;Hero$25.11:///////;[/tg]
0.1/0.2 No-Limit Hold'em (9 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: PokerStrategy Elephant 0.67 by www.pokerstrategy.com.

Preflop: Hero is BU with K♥, K♣
UTG1 raises to $1.21 (All-In), UTG2 calls $1.21, 4 folds, Hero raises to $4.84, 2 folds, UTG2 calls $3.63.

Flop: ($11.19) 2♦, 8♠, T♦ (2 players)
UTG2 checks, Hero bets $10.00, UTG2 raises to $22.18 (All-In), Hero raises to $20.27 (All-In).

Turn: ($53.64) 5♠
River: ($53.64) 4♥ (1 players)

Final Pot: $53.64

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows a pair of kings (Kh Kc)
UTG2 shows three of a kind, tens (Ts Th)
UTG1 shows a pair of fours (Ah 4s)

UTG2 wins with three of a kind, tens (Ts Th)

Who plays TT for set value for 20% of their stack, much less vs a regular TAG, much less again when you are a complete 100% pure blood nit?

That still has me completely flabbergasted. Throw in a lost 99 vs AK blind wars flip for the balance of the $40 turn around and youve got my night in a bottle.

Perhaps he called by mistake. I Guess I will never know. 3000 hands of 9/4(2 3bet) and bang, this hand. I feel like I was robbed in a dark alley.

Another Manilla game tomorrow night. I wish I could convince them to play something else, but itll be a cold day in hell when that happens. Shame, I think theyd like 7 card stud. Maybe ill try them on it...

Last Manilla night (not last friday, but the friday before) the most amazing thing happened -

Hero holds AQT

Board - J

So obviously holding 4 parts to the ace high wheel (drawing at a K then any match to my own cards before 4th street) I play bet-raise-cap.

2nd street - K

Now im playing for a match to my AQT, as I must fold one card on 4th street. So again I am playing bet-raise-cap.

3rd street - blank

Now I slow down. I play check-call.

4th street - ace

Now I hold the absolute nuts and can only lose if the board pairs or a higher A-high straight makes it on the river (highest cards in the hand for a straight wins, so if a Q fell and someone had stayed in with AK, they would hold A-high with AK in the hand vs my A-high with QT in the hand and win).

I play bet-cap. Villain plays bet-cap opposite me. I fold my ace.

5th street - ace

I play check-call as the board paired.

Villain turns AA for quad aces.

I refer you at this point to the bolded section above. I folded an ace on 4th street, but the villain made quad aces.

Turns out the dealer somehow took my mucked card and dealt it as 5th street. Unfortunately as its only a social game the hand had to be allowed to stand. Even in 20c/40c/80c Manilla (20c blind, 40c 1st-4th, 80c 5th street limits) the pot can grow quite large; I was playing bet-raise with the maniac of the group (who often bet-raises any 1st street picture without looking at his cards) and this one was by now quite massive for our game - about a $25 pot.

No points for guessing I will be exceptionally careful with my mucked cards in future.